


you could call me babe for the weekend

by daisylincs



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Awkwardness, Best Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Gift Fic, Humour, I love them so much, Idiots in Love, Secret Santa Fic, Sharing a Bed, Snowed In, Spideychelle Secret Santa, Weekend Break, ahahaha these DORKS, basically; they're like - oh no we're snowed in, but they figure it out eventually, oh REALLY no; there's only one bed!!, oh double no; I accidentally told Flash we were dating, that turns into a little longer because..., winter holiday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:14:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28238277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisylincs/pseuds/daisylincs
Summary: Here she was now, having just agreed to pretend to date Peter, the guy she had had a ridiculous crush on since she had met him, for the rest of the weekend. Which, by the way, could turn out to be for a lotlongerthan a weekend thanks to the lovely snowstorm currently blocking their way in and out.And, furthermore, she had the distinct and very nasty feeling that she hadn’t gotten to the worst part of the weekend yet…She was dead right.There was only one bed in the bedroom.(Or - Peter, MJ, and the worst weekend away of their lives - except that, just maybe, it’s thebestweekend away of their lives.)
Relationships: Academic Decathlon Team (Spider-Man: Homecoming) & Michelle Jones & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 9
Kudos: 45
Collections: Spideychelle Secret Santa - 2k20





	you could call me babe for the weekend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magneta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magneta/gifts).



> It's a Spideychelle-flavoured ho-ho-ho from me, and, Maggie, wishing you a very merry Christmas!! I had TONS of fun with this prompt, so I hope you enjoy it too <333
> 
> This fic is something of a quirky AU that occurred to me while I was going over your prompts - in it, everything happened as it did in canon up until Endgame, except that _MJ wasn't there._ She and Peter only met in Midtown _College_ when he transferred there well after the Snap. Furthermore, I decided to lift the characters of the AcaDec team straight out of Spider-Man: Homecoming, and plop them in here as is, except as _college_ students on the _debate_ team. (Spider-Man: Far From Home didn't happen in my canon, because... yeah. It just didn't, okay 🤣🤣)
> 
> (By the way, and this is a totally irrelevant detail, but something that took me... entirely too many minutes to fix - I initially had this all down as Midtown _University,_ before remembering that, ugh, no, I'm writing to and about Americans :P College, not university!! The amount of trouble I had with that is honestly RIDICULOUS, lmao. So, uh, if any America-facts seem a little weird or inaccurate, that would be why, and please forgive my British ass, ahahaha.)
> 
> Anyway, yeah!! This thing got a _teensy_ bit out of control (*coughs* just a _tiny_ little fourteen thousand words more than I had been planning *coughs*) but, um, yeah, whether I'm utterly insane for making it this long or not, I ended up really, REALLY liking how it turned out. And I sincerely hope you do, too! 💜 Happy holidays, Spidey-fans!! xD

"What do you mean," MJ asked in a dangerously calm tone of voice, "we're snowed in?" 

"Exactly that, unfortunately," Peter said, wincing. "You know that snowfall we saw when we were driving up yesterday? Yeah, well. It didn't _stop_. Apparently this is the most snow West Virginia has had in the past ten years, and the roads aren't built to take it. Especially not these small mountain roads." 

MJ drew in a long, deep breath, and blew it out slowly. "Okay," she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Okay, fine. Snowed in. I can deal with snowed in. It's _fine."_ She gave a short, sharp bark of laughter. "Let’s look on the bright side. The bright, non-snowy side. Well. It's not like it can get much _worse_ , can it?" 

Peter went very red at that, dropping his gaze to the floor to study the carpet with a sudden and immensely fascinated interest. 

Oh, _hell_ no. 

_"Peter,"_ she said, in the special tone of voice she normally reserved for when someone on the debate team was being a particularly big idiot. "What. Did. You. Do?" 

Peter coughed. Then cleared his throat. Then coughed a few more times. 

"I, uh," he said, and coughed again, looking at that carpet like it was the next improvement of Mendeleev's periodic table. 

_"Peter,"_ she warned, in her _you-have-two-seconds-before-I-lose-it_ voice. 

"ImayhavetoldFlashweweredating," he admitted in a rush.

"What?" she asked, slow and spectacularly deadpan. 

"I may have… I may have told Flash we were dating," he repeated, cringing. 

For a long, long moment, MJ was completely silent. 

Then she said, in a voice so utterly terrifying that Peter would later swear to her the _Black Widow_ would have been impressed, "you _what?"_

Peter looked stricken. "MJ, I'm so sorry, I wasn't thinking - " 

"That much is _abundantly_ clear," she snapped, noting with satisfaction how he blanched an impressive shade of grey-green. 

"Look, I know it was stupid, but Flash was being himself and insulting me, _and you,_ and also bisexuality in general -" 

"You know, I really don't want to hear the specifics," MJ interrupted, though she was willing to give him a small brownie point for the _defending bisexuality_ thing. 

He hung his head. "Yeah, I know, I'm sorry, I'm an idiot -" 

"You really, really are," she said, interrupting him again. "Because you _do_ realise we're going to have to pretend to date for the rest of the weekend now, don't you?" 

Peter's jaw dropped. "I'm sorry, what?" 

MJ made a sharp, impatient gesture. "You really think I'm going to let Flash - _Flash -_ make us both look like idiots?" 

"Well, technically, it wouldn't be us _both,_ I'm the one who opened my big mouth -" he started to protest, but she cut him off with a glare. 

"Flash is Flash," she said sharply. "We're just going to have to figure out a way to do this." 

Peter was looking at her with something a little bit like wonder in his gaze. "You really mean that?" 

"Well, there's no need to look so happy about it," she said drily. "It's literally just so Flash doesn’t lord it over us both for the rest of eternity." 

Peter flushed bright red. "O-of course, I wasn't suggesting there was another reason, why would there be another reason?" He finished it off with a nervous laugh, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck and blushing a little redder, if that was even possible. 

MJ had to roll her eyes at his awkwardness. “Yeah, whatever, Parker,” she said, waving a hand. On the outside, she was the very _picture_ of composure and sardonic disinterest, but _inside…_ well, she was a _mess._ Also, _really_ wishing that she had the ability to say no to Peter Parker.

Well, okay, no, she was being dramatic. But he had this little _smile,_ the corner of his lip tugging up hopefully, coupled with a sincere, imploring look in his big brown eyes - and it got her _every. single. time._ Since the very beginning of their friendship, too.

Ugh, she could still remember her first encounter with The Smile so well - herself, completely happy to mind her business in the back of the lecture hall subtly being the smartest person there, and then _him,_ a brand-new transfer student, skidding into their lecture more than twenty minutes late.

He had stood there, frozen in the doorway, for a full ten seconds, eyes darting frantically around the room as he searched for an open seat.

Then he had spotted the one next to _her._

Now, no-one ever - _ever_ \- sat next to MJ. She was by reputation (and proven by her standing as Midtown College’s debate captain) the smartest person in her year. But she was sharp, and prickly, and _blunt,_ completely unafraid to tell the truth, even if it _would_ hurt someone’s feelings. 

She had her reasons for all that, of course, but it didn’t exactly make for the best social currency. 

So was she respected? Hell yeah. Feared? Absolutely. Approached as a friend? ...Well, no.

But Peter Parker brought his bag to the desk next to hers anyway, wincing as he glanced at Professor Harrington in the front of the class, who was currently rivalling MJ’s best unimpressed glare. 

Turning back to MJ, Peter bit his lip, the gesture far more adorable than it had any right to be, and then turned _The Smile_ on her. “Can I sit here, please?” he had asked, and the way his brown eyes widened just a little bit when the professor cleared his throat did MJ in completely.

“Sure,” she had said, not able to _believe_ the words as they came out of her mouth. What the _fu -_

“Thanks,” he said, giving her another version of a smile that made her heart (and brain) melt even more - the grateful, oh-my-God-you’re-the- _best_ look, complete with matching puppy eyes. 

And she’d known it then. All her _I-won’t-have-a-crush-on-anyone-in-college-I-need-to-focus-on-becoming-the-best-lawyer-I-can-be-and-I-suck-at-getting-close-to-people-anyway_ resolutions went out of the window, just like that.

Because Peter, probably trying to thank her or something sickeningly sweet like that, sat down with her in the canteen for lunch that afternoon. And the next day. _And the next._

And despite herself, she could never get herself to tell him to go. Not when he wore science pun T-shirts that were so _stupid_ they were almost smart. Not when he begged and cajoled until she gave in and admitted her love for conspiracy theories, and they talked about those for hours on end. Not when he made her actively have to fight to bite back a full-on grin with every second thing he said. Not when he was so… _different_ from basically any other college-aged boy.

She never lied to herself if she could help it; but she told herself she had invited him to join the debate team because he was extremely smart, and thought quickly on his feet. (It was _true,_ after all.) She also told herself that she went over to his dorm every second week just to catch him up on all the work they had done so far, for the good of the team. (Again, true.)

But as _every second week_ turned into _every second afternoon,_ and something suspiciously like a _blush_ started to cover her cheeks whenever he pulled out The Smile… well, there was no denying it anymore.

She hid it, of course - kept her interactions with him exactly the same as usual, which is to say, sarcastic and a lot more banter-y than her frustratingly fluttery brain would like.

Peter didn’t notice, though - but then again, _of course_ he didn’t. He was Peter Parker; so oblivious to girls' feelings that, short of marching around with an I LOVE PETER PARKER sign above her head, he'd never even dream she liked him. 

(And even _then,_ he'd probably find a way to think it meant some other Peter Parker.)

So yeah. She was cool.

Or she _had_ been cool - until this stupid trip which, yeah, her gut instinct had been right, she should _never_ have said yes to.

But, in true Peter fashion, he had brought out _the smile_ \- “but, MJ, Abe’s dad’s mountain cabin is free for the first time in months, and we’ve all been super stressed with finals! It’d be _good_ to get a break! For _everyone.”_

She hadn’t missed his pointed look when he said that, and had grudgingly conceded that, _fine,_ she overworked herself a little. Sometimes. _Maybe_.

But big holidays - _particularly_ not big holidays with big groups of people - were _not_ her thing. She was a private person; her definition of relaxing and resetting was a cup of good strong tea and a decent murder mystery. And maybe the occasional visit with one Peter Parker, who knew. Anyway - distinctly _not_ this.

And yet… here she was.

It was that damn smile, she _swore._ If he wasn’t that adorable, her life would be a _lot_ easier.

Because here she was now, having just agreed to pretend to date Peter, the guy she had a ridiculous crush on since she had met him, for the rest of the weekend. Which, by the way, could turn out to be for a lot _longer_ than a weekend thanks to the lovely snowstorm currently blocking their way in and out. 

And, furthermore, she had the distinct and very nasty feeling that she hadn’t gotten to the worst part of the weekend yet…

But there was no point in making things out to be worse than they were, right? They just needed to hold hands every now and then, and come up with some kind of a convincing get-together story.

Wait. Dammit. _A get-together story._

“Peter,” MJ said sharply, zoning back in to the present and interrupting what was doubtless a very sweet speech about her comfort, and how he didn’t want to pressure her into anything because of _his_ dumb mouth. (Even though she had only heard about a quarter of it, she appreciated the sentiment - and agreed wholeheartedly that, yes, he _did_ have a really dumb mouth sometimes. 

And as for the rest of it - well, she had said she was in, so she _was.)_

“We need a cover story,” she told Peter matter-of-factly when he had finished looking like a surprised and unfairly cute goldfish in response to her interruption.

He blinked. “A… cover story?” 

“I’m sure you know what a cover story is, Parker,” she said, her voice just a little drier than she had been intending. _Oops_. “But I mean for, you know, _us_. Why we’re… together.” 

Despite herself, and all her sharp, sarcastic _I-couldn’t-care-less-about-this_ attitude, she couldn’t prevent her voice from catching slightly at that word; _together_. 

Dammit. Okay, so maybe this was going to be a _little_ harder than she had thought. 

Fortunately, though, Peter was far too busy having a miniature meltdown over the idea of a _cover story_ to notice her tiny slip. “Do we really… have to think of a _story?”_ he asked with a very obvious wince.

MJ folded her arms, giving him a _look._ “Peter,” she said flatly. 

“I’m being serious!” he protested, raising his palms defensively. “Why would we need a cover story?” 

She pinched the bridge of her nose, letting out a long, _long_ sigh. “Alright, look,” she said wearily, as though agreeing to fake-date her best friend was something she did all the time, and no big deal. “Let’s say Ned and Betty were together. What would your first question be?” 

“NED AND BETTY ARE TOGETHER?!?!” Peter half-yelled, his eyes flying open and an expression of delighted surprise filling his eyes.

“No, they’re - did you even listen to what I said, Parker? _Pretend_ Ned and Betty are together.” She couldn’t stop herself from muttering a quick, “it’s only a matter of time, though,” under her breath, though.

Peter, who shouldn’t _possibly_ have been able to hear her from that far away, nodded his agreement regardless. “It _has_ to happen, yeah. They’d be _so cute!”_

_“Exactly,”_ MJ agreed before she could stop herself. “And I never thought I’d say this, but they’re just different enough that it’d _work.”_

He nodded, eyes bright with excitement. “We should set them up!”

“We should -” _come up with a cover story,_ her brain suddenly supplied, the reminder niggling insistently in the back of her mind.

“Peter,” she said, snapping her fingers. “That’d be great, but we need to stay on _track_ here.” How was it that he could distract her so easily, anyway? It just wasn’t _fair._

“Say Ned and Betty _were_ together,” she continued, “what would your first question be?” 

He barely even had to think about it. “When did this happen? How did this happen?” 

“... I see your point,” he conceded, wincing slightly.

She held up her hand for an entirely sarcastic high-five.

“Any ideas?” Peter asked, catching her hand in mid-air and lacing his fingers through hers, only slightly awkwardly.

She had to fight not to physically pull away. “What are you _doing,_ Parker?” she asked, looking at their joined hands with no small amount of disbelief.

His grin was just a _little_ bit too shit-eating for this to be entirely an accident. “Dating you.” 

She tried to huff, but it came out a little more strangled than she had intended. 

Peter, of course, noticed immediately, and let go of her hand at once, his gaze filling with concern and crippling guilt. “MJ, oh my God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfor -” he began, but she cut him off mid-sentence by reaching for his hand again.

“You’re right,” she told him, trying to keep her breathing as steady as possible as she laced her fingers through his again. “We’re dating, things like this should be normal.”

He nodded slowly, but his gaze was still full of concern. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable in _any_ way, though,” he said firmly. 

She was touched despite herself, and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “You just caught me by surprise, that’s all,” she said. “It’s _fine,_ really.” 

Well, _that_ was a lie. It _should_ have been fine, definitely - it was just _hands,_ after all. And, rom-com fodder or no, holding another person’s hand shouldn’t be _that_ spectacular or weak-knee-inducing. She was literally just closing her fingers around his, _come on._

But, dammit, no amount of science or logic could have prepared her for the rush of giddiness that shot through her from head to toe when he squeezed her hand back. Science and logic couldn’t reason it away, either - she felt hyper-attuned to every tiny movement he made, her mind analysing every minute shift that she could _feel_ through their linked hands, and her nerves exploding into starbursts of tingles at every new shift and contact.

She cleared her throat, and when she spoke, her voice was half an octave higher than it normally was. “So, um,” she said, _very_ casually, “cover story ideas. Well, uh… what would be _realistic?”_

Peter glanced up from their joined hands, and she wondered what the faint blush colouring his cheeks could mean. “Not that I’ve thought about it, or anything,” he said, the red on his cheeks a lot more pronounced now, “but you and I spend a lot of time together, right? What if during one of our study sessions -”

“You opened your big mouth and said something really stupid?” MJ interrupted, batting her eyelashes at him. 

He pouted far too adorably at her, and so she qualified, “everyone always says it’s important to have a cover story that’s close to the truth, right? So what if we say that you… were calling Aunt May, and you didn’t realise I was still in your dorm?” 

“And, what, I told her I had a crush on you?” Peter asked, ducking his head to study the locker room’s apparently _intensely_ fascinating carpet again. His ears, she couldn’t help but notice, were bright red. 

“It could work,” she agreed, shrugging her shoulders and trying her hardest to quell the butterflies fluttering up in her stomach. The way he went red like that, and studiously avoided her gaze… this wasn’t something that had _actually_ happened, was it? Well, apart from the her-overhearing thing, of course.

She studied Peter a little more closely, chewing her lip. That _couldn’t_ be the real reason he was being so awkward, could it? Surely she was just projecting?

But if she _wasn’t_ projecting, and something like this _had_ happened before, that meant he actually _did_ have a crush on -

Dammit, no, of _course_ she was just projecting. This was _Peter Parker,_ he wouldn’t know how _not_ to be awkward if there was a _manual_. 

There was no point getting her ridiculous hopes up just because _he_ was being awkward.

 _Though he did tell Flash he was dating you_ , some tiny part of her brain piped up. _Not any other girl -_ you. 

But that was just because she was the only girl on the debate team he knew how to speak to without making a complete idiot of himself, right? Though even _that_ was a close thing sometimes, the _dork._

No, if anything, this _proved_ that Peter thought of her as a friend - his _best_ friend, who would have his back and help him out, awkwardness or no.

Her heart gave a small twinge in time with the tiny voice in her brain going _but -_

But she squashed them both down, giving herself a quick shake and turning all her attention to Peter.

She _was_ his best friend, and he was hers, whether she had a hopeless crush on him or not. 

And she _would_ help him out and have his back no matter what.

//

Everyone was gathered in the cabin’s main lounge, and when Peter and MJ came out of the locker room together, and, seeing them, Flash gave a long wolf-whistle. “Heyyyy, lovebirds,” he said, smirking at them. “Have a good time in there? Good makeout sesh?” 

MJ rolled her eyes, but she wasn’t exactly going to explain, _oh, no, we actually had an emergency meeting about the fact that we’re snowed in and also the tiny, insignificant little detail that we have to pretend to date for the rest of the weekend._

Peter, on the other hand, went bright red. “Come on, Flash, I just went to tell her about the snow,” he protested, rubbing his nose the way he always did when he was embarrassed, and (uselessly) trying to hide it.

“Yup, of course, that’s _all_ you did,” Flash agreed, and he actually threw them a _wink._

The rest of the debate team, MJ noted, looked a mixture of amused, mildly surprised, and pleased for them - with the notable exception of Ned, whose eyebrows were so high up on his forehead that they were practically disappearing into his hairline.

She swallowed. _Ned._

Ned Leeds was… well, if she and Peter were best friends, Peter and Ned were _Star Wars soulmates,_ or something. Peter and Ned had transferred to Midtown College together halfway through MJ’s second year, and she got the feeling that he was the only person who knew _why,_ exactly, they had transferred so suddenly. They had known each other in high school, she thought, and been best friends then - nerdy, constantly-referencing-Star-Wars, joking-on-the-surface-but-fiercely-supportive-and-protective-of-each-other best friends. If she had to _guess,_ she would say it had something to do with The Snap and The Blip - but whatever it was, it hadn’t broken _those_ two apart. 

They were, she often joked, basically linked by a Jedi Force bond. (The day she had first told them that, she often thought, was the day she had first been fully accepted into their circle.)

She and Ned weren’t nearly as close, but they were, as MJ liked to put it, bonded by the dork they both adored - and, though she had often thought Ned would resent the fact that Peter had gone out of his way to make friends with MJ, he never seemed to. He seemed perfectly content to give her _her_ time with Peter, as though he knew nothing could ever take away _his._

Nothing _could,_ it was true. Those two were the tightest duo she had ever seen.

Because, eventually, she _did_ start to see more of them. Initially, Ned had left them to their own completely when she came to Peter’s “to tutor him” after debate practice, which he invariably missed one time out of two (she had _no_ theories as to _why_ he kept skipping practice _,_ of course.) Then, after they were done, Ned would be waiting outside the dorm room door for what they _said_ were Star Wars nerd sessions (but which she had a sneaking suspicion had a lot more to do with red-and-blue suits than brown robes and lightsabers.) 

Eventually, though, Ned started arriving a little earlier, and she started staying a little later, and they’d… hang out together.

Now, MJ had never, didn’t now and _would_ never describe herself as a “people person,” or someone with a lot of friends - but those hours when they all sprawled out together on Peter’s couch eating popcorn and joking together were pretty much the most fun she had in her entire _week_. She wouldn’t give them up for _anything._

So yeah, they were _friends._

And the thought that _neither_ of them would have told him they were dating was… more than a little suspicious.

Except, of course, if they were trying to spare his feelings, and prevent things from becoming awkward between them? That was a possibility? 

MJ watched Ned closely. Maybe he’d believe that? 

The chances were _much_ higher that he wouldn’t, though, and he’d be able to tell that something was up. 

To her great relief, though, he didn’t say anything, just kept watching them with raised eyebrows.

They weren’t so lucky with the rest of the team, though.

“Oh my God, you guys are dating?!” Betty gushed, rushing forward to hug them both in turn. “I knew this day was coming, I’m so happy for you!” 

MJ patted the other girl’s back, feeling as awkward as Peter, and sending her “boyfriend” a wide-eyed _help_ expression over Betty’s shoulder. Snickering slightly, Peter caught her hand and freed her from Betty’s hold, brushing his thumb in a quick, soothing circle over the back of her hand.

And it _shouldn’t_ have been so comforting, it really _shouldn’t,_ especially since this wasn’t _real._ They weren’t _really_ dating. It was just for show. 

Betty, fortunately, was _eating up_ said show. “Awww, you guys are so _cute_ together,” she cooed, cupping her chin in her hands. “When did you start going out?” 

“Um, well, two weeks ago,” MJ said with a close-lipped smile, at the same time as Peter said, “three weeks ago.” 

They glanced at each other, eyes wide, and MJ’s brain flashed with little red warning lights - _crap, crap, crap!_ They had decided _how_ they had gotten together, but not _when_ it had happened? 

She thought, _how could I have been this_ stupid? 

And, _what kind of a “good friend” am I if I can’t even hold together a cover story for two minutes?_

“I’m right, it’s two weeks,” she told Betty, nudging Peter’s shoulder in what she hoped looked like a comfortable, _my-boyfriend-is-an-idiot-but-I-still-love-him_ kind of way. “But, _technically,_ Peter isn’t wrong either.” She rolled her eyes dramatically, playing up the fondness when she turned to glance at him. “The first time we figured out we liked each other was three weeks ago, but it was another week later before this dork screwed up the courage to ask me out.” 

Confidingly, and with just a hint of playful mockery, she added, “I was just about to ask him out myself if he left it another day.” 

“Hey,” Peter protested, catching on and bumping her shoulder, too. “I wasn’t _that_ hopeless!” 

“You so were,” she retorted, poking him in the ribs with her free hand. “I had to overhear you calling your aunt - your _aunt_ \- about how much you liked me before you’d admit it was true.” 

Peter’s cheeks were a very convincing shade of red. “Okay, fine, that’s -” 

“How it happened,” MJ cut him off, smiling angelically as she turned to Betty. (Her cheeks hurt.) 

Betty nodded, her eyes a little dreamy. “Oh, I can just _see_ it,” she said. “It’s SO cute!” 

To Ned, who was standing next to her, she whispered, just loud enough that MJ could hear, “I ship it.” 

And Ned, to MJ’s faint alarm, nodded.

 _Uh-oh,_ she thought. _That is… uh-oh._

If Ned actually believed they were dating - and the jury was still out on that, by the way, he could just be playing along - that meant he’d be on their case to do cute couple things _all weekend._

And he’d tease them. Like. _Non-stop._

 _This is not good,_ the little voice in MJ’s brain pointed out helpfully.

And as though to reinforce that statement, Abe came crashing into the room, looking unmistakably like the bringer of bad news.

“Guys, we have a small problem,” he said, then caught sight of Peter and MJ. “Wait, _that_ happened? Cindy, you owe me twenty dollars!” 

Then, as though that wasn’t a big enough revelation - the team had _bet_ on them??? _What_ \- he barrelled on. “My dad, uh, got the figures a little wrong,” he said, looking apologetically around the room. “He thought there were just ten of us coming, so he prepared… ten beds. There’s one extra mattress in the outhouse that I can take, but…” 

They were an AcaDec team, and they could all do simple arithmetic. “Somebody will still be left without a bed,” Ned said gloomily, speaking for them all. 

“Someone will have to share,” Betty corrected him, nodding her head slowly. MJ didn’t miss the way she glanced quickly at Ned, then away again, her cheeks going a little pink. _(Ha.)_

But then, quite suddenly, Betty brightened, clapping her hands in delight. “Hey, I _know!”_ she said, looking like she had just solved the holiday’s biggest paradox. “Peter and MJ can do it!” 

_“What?!”_ MJ spluttered, dropping Peter’s hand like he had shocked her. “We - _what?”_

Beside her, Peter echoed the sentiment, his eyes wide as he yelped out a panicked, _“no!”_

The whole team was looking at them now, looking alternatively confused or amused - or smug and knowing, in Ned’s case. _(Uh-oh, indeed.)_

MJ recovered herself first. “Isn’t that exactly why we _shouldn’t_ share a bed?” she asked reasonably.

Abe shrugged his shoulders. “Nah, my dad’s cool, he won’t mind.” 

_Shit._

MJ wasn’t in the habit of swearing, mostly because she liked to go against the socialist structure, and she thought swearing to make yourself look cool was _stupid_ \- but in this case, she’d make an exception.

Because as if pretending to date Peter and not losing her mind wasn’t going to be hard enough, she now had to share a _bed_ with him? 

She was _screwed._

She was so, so screwed.

_Shit._

//

Apparently the rest of the team took Peter and MJ’s shocked silence to mean they’d do it, no problems, because when they all dispersed to go unpack their things, they were sent to the same room.

MJ had never felt more apprehensive to push open a door in her _life._

They walked into the room together, and the first thing MJ noticed was the _bed_ against the far wall - large, white, and very distinctly _the only bed in the room._

The air of awkwardness in the room was suddenly so thick that she could barely breathe, settling like an almost tangible thing on her shoulders.

_Shit, shit, shit._

After a minute of utter silence, in which MJ thought of all the ways it was scientifically (and conspiratorially) possible for the earth to open up and swallow her, Peter said, his voice much higher than it usually was - “I’ll sleep on the floor.” 

Of _course_ he’d say that, completely _unfairly_ nice idiot that he was. 

“No way, Parker,” she snapped, even though her highly-overwhelmed brain was screaming at her, _yes, oh my god, yes, say yes, this is going to be SO BAD._

“I _will!”_ he protested, meeting her gaze earnestly. “I’ve slept in much more uncomfortable places, MJ, _really.”_

Now _that_ she could actually believe, especially if her theory about his red-and-blue secret was correct.

“That doesn’t mean you have to do it again,” she said, surprising herself and him by how _gentle_ her voice came out. Dammit, she sounded so… _compassionate._

Peter blinked at her, then half-smiled, looking oddly touched. “That’s very sweet, MJ.” 

“I know, I know,” she grumbled, rolling her eyes in an attempt to get back some of her more customary sharpness. “I guess it’s just the girlfriend thing rubbing off on me, girlfriends are nice to their boyfriends, right? Not that we’re _actually_ dating, or anything, but…” She trailed off, groaning internally. _Way to dig your hole, Jones._ “Just… don’t expect it again,” she finished lamely.

Peter was nodding, trying his best to look serious, but she could see the grin tugging at the corners of his lips. And, in true Peter Parker fashion, it melted her _heart._

“Shut up,” she grumbled, but there was no force behind it. She shoved his shoulder gently, and he shoved hers right back, and despite herself, her heart skipped a little beat at how _easy_ it was, how comfortable.

Deciding to make use of the nicer atmosphere while she had it, she said, “So, uh, the bed.” 

As instantly as flicking on a switch, the awkwardness was back, and MJ had to look away from Peter’s all-too-expressive eyes. Still, she soldiered on, keeping her gaze firmly fixed on the wall. “We’re both in college, we’re practically adults, and we can be responsible for ourselves,” she rattled off. “We can share a bed without dying about it. Right?” 

“Right,” Peter squeaked, his voice awkwardly high-pitched once again. “Uh. Yes. Totally! Basic maths, right? Half for you, half for me?” 

“Exactly,” she agreed, nodding studiously at the wall. “It’ll be _just fine.”_

//

It was not, in fact, just fine.

MJ had excused herself earlier from dinner, pleading a headache (when, in reality, she was going up to their room to lament her _terrible_ decision-making skills, especially where Peter Parker was concerned, and to escape all her teammates for a little bit. They were great, mostly, but she wasn’t used to so many people around her, _all the time,_ and all suddenly wanting to talk to her.

God, she _really_ had a lot to lament over, decision-making-wise.) 

She was half-way through _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,_ her go-to comfort read, when Peter opened the door, peeking in with a head of ruffled curls and a far-too-adorable half-smile on his lips. 

“Hey,” he said, closing the door gently behind him. “You okay?” 

MJ finished reading her sentence - it was _Hermione Granger,_ how could she not - before closing her book and giving him a small but sincere smile. “Hey, dork,” she greeted. “And I’m fine. Just needed to get away from _people_ for a little bit.” 

“Mmm, I don’t blame you,” he agreed, cringing slightly as he glanced at the closed door behind him. “Betty would _not_ leave me alone. Besides,” he added, nodding at her book, “you’ve got some _much_ better company right there.” 

“Don’t I just?” she asked, grinning so naturally and feeling herself go so _soft_ inside that she was more than a little worried.

Peter grinned too, and the look in his brown eyes was way, _way_ too tender for her confused heart and mind to deal with. “You really do,” he agreed softly.

The way he was looking at her, it was so _fond,_ almost like… No. She wasn’t going there. She had already established, after all, that she _wasn’t_ going there, she wasn’t going to let her heart get broken by a boy all over again!

Not that she thought Peter would ever break her heart, _far_ from it. He was literally the sweetest person she knew.

But he _was_ her best friend, and that was, obviously, all she was to him, too. She couldn’t let herself hope for more, because then she’d only have _herself_ to blame for hurting about his inevitable kind rejection.

… _Oops,_ she noticed with a sudden flash of guilt, he was speaking to her, saying something about -

“Shower?” he finished, looking at her expectantly.

She nodded blankly, her mind suddenly going into overdrive again. _Don’t think about Peter in the shower, don’t think about Peter in the shower, don’t think about -_

Their bathroom’s door closed behind him, and she groaned out loud, burying her head in the pillow. 

She was totally thinking about Peter in the shower.

Reaching an arm out towards her bedside table, she scrabbled frantically until her fingers closed around the spine of the book there. Breathing out a quiet sigh of relief, she flipped through the pages until she found her place again, feverishly trying to get her brain to _read_ and stop thinking about… the other thing.

 _It didn’t work._ Not even the Golden Trio’s banter could distract her from her thoughts of Peter - she had it _really_ bad. 

Groaning again, she dropped the book on her face, wincing a little as the sharp edges of pages poked her cheeks. For as long as she could, she breathed in and out in the book-induced darkness, enjoying the crisp smell of the pages and waiting for those _ridiculous_ hitches in her breathing to even out.

She had just about managed to get herself into a somewhat calm and controlled state again, when -

“MJ?” Peter asked from the bathroom, his voice tentative and apologetic, like he really didn’t want to ask her to do this.

Well, _that_ was certainly a good sign.

“What?” she called back, pushing the book a little more firmly onto her face when her breathing started to get all erratic again.

“Could you, um… ” he hesitated, and she could just _see_ him wincing, the water droplets in his hair making the little cringe about twenty times more adorable. “Could you pass me my shirt?” 

Could she _what?_

MJ sat up so fast that the book went flying off her face, and she spared a second to apologise internally to her book-loving parents (who had passed on that same love to her) before thumping her own chest heartily to recover from a loud, spluttering choke on air.

“Can… can I _what?”_ she asked faintly.

Peter’s head popped around the door, apologetic expression and all, and MJ’s brain ground to a halt. 

_Water droplets._

There were water droplets in his hair, and tracing little trails down his cheeks, his _lips_ (she fixated for a lot longer than she should have on his _lips)_ before dripping down his neck and pooling in the hollow of his throat, finally trickling down his chest and - hooooooooly fuck, _abs._ Peter Parker had abs. 

_Such. Abs._

Through a dizzy mist in her brain, she somehow managed to hear Peter saying, “- really sorry, I usually sleep without a shirt so I forgot to take one in with me, but, uh, I thought that might make things awkward when we… MJ? Are you okay?” 

“Abs,” she blurted. _Then_ her brain caught up, and, eyes widening, she frantically corrected it to, “Abs….olutely. Absolutely fine, thanks!” 

“Okay,” Peter said slowly, in a spectacularly unconvinced tone of voice. To her utter _horror,_ he stepped fully into the room, crossing his arms sceptically in a way that - _oh God_ \- made the muscles there ripple and bulge _most_ attractively. 

“You’re sure you’re okay?” he had the temerity to ask, like her brain was still able to function properly.

“Mhmm,” she squeaked, and, honestly, the fact that she got the sound out in the first place was a point of _pride._ “I am _fine._ Fine is me. No-one has ever been any more fine than me!” 

_Right,_ she was just about to die now, if any of her scientific explanations or conspiracy theories would come to pass, please.

Unfortunately for her, none did, and to make her abject horror at herself even _worse,_ she realised that her mouth had dropped open at some point during the process, and she was still _gaping_ at Peter Parker’s chest. Cursing herself in every language she knew (Italian, French, German and a few words of Mandarin - _what,_ she had a perfect GPA for a reason) she spun around and walked blindly into their shared room, bumping into the bed on her way to Peter’s bag.

“Shirt,” she managed, finding said item tossed casually on top of his things and handing it to him as non-awkwardly as she could manage.

Her hands brushed against his once - _just once_ \- during this process, though, and it was enough to send a whole _flood_ of tingly sparks shooting up her body.

To make things _even worse -_ because apparently, wanting to actually die from embarrassment wasn’t bad enough for yet - he had to go _put the shirt on_ then, turning around and raising his arms so she got a prime view of the muscles on his back flexing and rippling with the movement.

 _Back muscles._ She hadn’t even realised those were… a _thing,_ and yet, right now she couldn’t take her eyes off them.

She wanted to run her hands over them, and the rest of his muscles as well, and find out first hand if they were really as _solid_ as they looked, and - oh, _God,_ this was so bad.

This was Peter Parker, her hopeless crush, yes, but also the best friend she had ever had! She could _not_ afford to destroy that precious friendship by… unashamedly lusting over him.

She turned away from Peter, who, to her incredible relief, popped back into the bathroom to finish changing. For her part, she collapsed face-first into the large, white bed…

… except that, _shit shit_ shit, doing that made her realise that she had to _share_ said bed with him. 

Him and his _abs._

Honestly, she didn’t know why she was even surprised that he was this ripped - if her red-and-blue theory was correct, he would _have_ to be, after all. 

_Well,_ she thought, with a half-hysterical laugh that she hoped Peter wouldn’t hear, _at least that’s_ one _positive from this whole hell-mess!_

This brought her confidence in her theory up to at _least_ sixty-seven percent.

Which, granted, wasn’t _much,_ but she also wasn’t going to give herself much more time to think about it, because that would lead to thinking about his _abs,_ and how the water droplets had trickled in enticing little lines down them, and -

Yup. She had a problem.

And, much as she had fervently hoped it would, the problem didn’t magically disappear in the ten minutes between Peter finishing changing, and her getting up to take her own turn in the shower. It also didn’t magically disappear when she was _in_ the shower. And it definitely, _definitely_ didn’t magically disappear when she came back into the bedroom to find Peter already sprawled out on the bed, looking far too adorable in a pair of plaid pajamas.

He had picked up her Harry Potter book, and he was completely engrossed in it, not noticing her standing hesitantly in the bathroom door at all. 

He looked… well, he had _always_ been cute, but now that she knew what was _beneath_ that soft blue shirt, it gave him a whole new level of attractiveness.

And, furthermore, there was something distinctly _breathtaking_ about the way he looked in that moment, his curls still damp and a small grin on his face as he absorbed JKR’s brilliant writing…

Now, MJ had never been one to fall in love with a pretty face, or to moon over a handsome set of muscles. She was the kind of person who fell for a _character -_ sweet, kind, caring, and just a little dumb and dorky on occasion. 

But she was going to admit it: there was nothing - _nothing_ \- wrong with Peter Parker’s muscles. And she was most _definitely_ attracted to him, and them.

Ugh, _so_ attracted.

And to think she had to share a _bed_ with him, knowing she’d be within half a metre from _those abs…_ oh, God.

Tonight was going to be _fun._

And by fun, of course, she meant absolute _torture._

Clearing her throat, MJ stepped properly into the room, hesitating before crossing over to the bed. What was she supposed to do _now?_ Was there some kind of… bed-sharing etiquette? Did she just walk over and get in, or did they have to talk about it first?

And, more pressingly, did she have to stop thinking about his abs first? 

(Somehow, she thought the answer to the last one was a _yes.)_

But as for the rest of it -

Peter glanced up from his book, meeting her gaze and giving her a small smile. “Sorry, I stole this,” he said, holding _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_ up to show her. “I love Harry Potter almost as much as Star Wars, and -” 

“That’s quite the compliment coming from you, wow!” she said, managing to push away the questions simmering in her brain and walk over to the bed. “But I don’t mind at all, it’s a great book.” 

Peter smiled at her, his cheeks dimpling, and she just thought, _dammit._ She could barely even focus enough to hear his pleased little “it really _is_ great!” 

Giving herself the firmest mental shake she had ever managed, she crossed over to sit on the end of the bed, wincing when it gave an obnoxiously long, loud squeak. 

Instantly, awkwardness settled between them, thick and stifling as a hot summer’s day. Apparently it was just sinking in, for the both of them, that the time was _now,_ they had to share this bed _now._

Peter was the first one to speak. “I’m ready for bed if you are?” he asked, putting down her book. His eyes widened immediately as he realised what he had said. “I-I didn’t mean it like that! I promise I didn’t, MJ, I just meant I’m ready to sleep - to _go_ to sleep, that is, not to sleep with _you,_ I wasn’t thinking that, I’ll stay on my side of the bed all night, I’m not some creep who -” 

“I know, Peter,” she said, and though she was tired, and more embarrassed than she could ever remember being in her _life,_ there was still a hint of warmth in her tone. And, remarkably enough, strength - because, bizarre as it was, Peter’s awkward ramble had given her the exact motivation she needed to rally herself. 

Insanely hot abs or not, Peter was still _Peter_ \- her sweet, awkward, dorky best friend.

“Okay, dork,” she said, and she wished there wasn’t quite so much affection behind the roll of her eyes. “I’m turning off the lights now.” 

“Okay,” Peter agreed, shifting so that he was lying back more comfortably against the pillows. “Whenever you’re ready.” 

She leaned over to the wall switch and flicked off the lights, blinking a little at the sudden and full-on darkness.

Out here, in the wilder mountains of West Virginia, there was no city to pour a constant, dim glow of light pollution through her curtains. It was _ink-black_ out there - or, she thought with a quick thrill in the pun, _midnight-_ black.

It was oddly comforting, that darkness - like her problems didn’t seem so _real_ if she couldn’t see them, couldn’t face them head-on. 

Regrettably, she hadn’t banked on still _feeling_ her problems - specifically, Peter Parker’s hand, reaching out of the darkness to close around her wrist with an uncanny certainty of her position. Tugging gently at her hand, he guided her carefully to sit on the bed.

“Thanks,” she said, with only a minimal hitch in her breathing.

Peter shrugged - or, at least, she _thought_ he did, what with the total darkness she couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like a very _Peter_ thing to do - and settled back onto his pile of pillows. 

The whole bed dipped a little as he adjusted his position - not enough to make it creak so obnoxiously again, thank _God,_ but definitely enough that she could feel the little shift in the mattress.

And, unless she was very much mistaken, said little shift brought him about half a metre closer to her.

Heart pounding, she lay down carefully on the bed, pressing her face into the pillow and inhaling deeply.

Through hearing tuned a little finer due to the darkness around them, she heard Peter do the same thing, exhaling in a long, slow spurt of breath.

She could practically _see_ him lying there, completely awake, and staring up at the ceiling - the way he did sometimes when he couldn’t sleep and video-called her from his dorm.

Differently from those times, though, she could also see the sculpted muscles on his chest and arms in her mind’s eye - see them _all_ too clearly, little trickles of water running down them, no less.

She gulped, then winced, knowing Peter would definitely be able to hear the sound in the darkness.

For one, crazy moment, she considered letting all reason go to hell, and rolling over to make out with him.

Would he kiss her back?

And what would it be _like_ if he did?

For a single, crystal-clear moment - a moment akin to the second you linger in the air before a fall - she let herself consider it.

But then, like the inevitable crash of gravity, she banished that notion from her mind.

Peter had been _very clear_ from the start of this thing that they were just friends, and that this was just to keep Flash off their cases. 

Well, actually… _she_ had said that, hadn’t she?

But it wasn’t like he had _argued,_ or anything. And if he had really wanted more with her, surely he would have argued? 

Her mind made up, MJ drew all her focus into analysing the twenty-second chapter of Jane Austen’s _Mansfield Park,_ something which _never_ failed to knock her out (and also knock any inconvenient dreams of kissing her best friend right out of her mind.)

There would be no rolling over and making out with anyone tonight.

She and Peter were friends, and they were going to share a bed, and that was _all_ there was going to be to it.

No matter how awkward it was in the dark, or how attuned she was to every tiny move he made, how she could _feel_ the heat of his body radiating through the covers…

 _All._ That was going to be _all._

//

MJ woke up slowly the next morning, feeling wholly and surprisingly warm. The last thing she remembered from last night, other than her blatant refusal to think of anything Peter Parker-related, was being _cold._

She had figured it made sense - they were _snowed in,_ after all, and last time she checked, snow didn’t exactly fall at a comfortable room temperature.

And the cabin’s blankets had been good, it wasn’t like she was _freezing_ or anything, but still… she definitely hadn’t been _warm._

Now, though… her entire body felt pleasantly, comfortably warm. 

Especially, she noted, her waist and the front of her stomach, like there was something warm draped across her middle.

Also, oddly enough, her _back_ \- like she had fallen asleep lying against a hot water bottle.

Slowly, and with dawning horror in time with the sunbeams creeping across their bed, MJ put two and two together.

And, for the umpteenth time in as many hours, she thought a straight-up swear word.

_Shit._

She didn’t even have to open her eyes to know that what she suspected was true - she was currently snuggled up against Peter Parker, her head pillowed against his shoulder and his arm wrapped comfortably around her waist.

 _What,_ she wondered a little frantically, _happened to adults who can do basic maths?_

Because whatever the hell had happened here, it was most definitely _not_ her being on one side of the bed, and him in the other.

Squinting, she tried to figure out who had moved into whose space… but as far as she could gather, they seemed to be dead in the middle.

The most innocent explanation she could think of was that they had both been cold during the night, and had instinctively gravitated towards the nearest sources of warmth - which, unfortunately, happened to be _each other._

The second explanation she could think of was…

Yeah, no, she wasn’t thinking about that, especially not with Peter’s body still pressed so closely against hers.

Slowly, carefully, she made to lift Peter’s arm and wriggle out of his grip, back to her own side of the bed. Hopefully she could be well out of this situation without him even needing to know it had happened -

Muttering something that sounded like a muffled _“MJ”_ in his sleep, Peter tightened his arm around her waist, pulling her a little closer to him.

She tensed, all her muscles freezing up as she wondered, with increasing desperation, what on earth she was supposed to do now.

A part of her brain, the far less logical, far more “ _abs abs abs cute smile ahhhh”_ part, was screaming - _don’t do anything! Stay! Isn’t this everything you’ve always wanted?_

The other part of her, though, shouted the exact opposite. _This is Peter!!_ it yelled, as though she needed the reminder. _Your best friend!! Are you really willing to lose him, and that special friendship, because_ your _feelings got out of control one morning?_

The answer to that came immediately, and came much, _much_ stronger than the emotional wish to stay in his arms, warm and unfairly comfortable as she was here - _no._

No matter what, she could _not_ lose Peter, or the friendship they shared.

He meant far, _far_ too much to her for that.

So she tried again, tugging at his arm a little more insistently - and when that had no success (dammit, _muscles)_ she poked him sharply in the ribs.

He sat bolt upright immediately, his fists raising to cover his face and his body, to her shock, shooting into a defensive position like he might be attacked any second.

“Whoa, whoa,” she said, reaching out to pat his arm gently, and also disentangle her legs from his as tactfully as possible. “It’s me, Peter. It’s MJ. You’re okay.” 

“MJ,” he repeated. And then, “okay.” 

The fierce, hunted look in his eyes dimmed, and, _most_ unfortunately for her, his wits and intelligence came rushing back in place of it.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, holding out his hands (much more calmly this time, she had to note.) “MJ, why were you on my _lap?”_

She cringed, managing to finally tuck her legs under herself _just_ too late to prevent him from noticing. “I wasn’t on your _lap,”_ she said defensively, tucking a strand of sleep-frizzed hair behind her ear.

Peter’s eyes followed the motion, and she couldn’t help but notice how his gaze went very soft as he took in her sleep-mussed state. “Yeah, well,” he said, seeming to remember himself after a second that stretched much longer, “it certainly _looked_ like you were in my lap.” 

“That was just because you sat up so fast,” she said. “We were actually lying down, and I was just busy getting out of your -” 

A split-second too late, she realised what she had just said, clapping a hand over her mouth.

But the damage was done. A horrified, _dismayed_ look spread over Peter’s features as he processed what she meant. “Oh, God, MJ…” he said, and his face was positively _ashen_ as he looked at her. “Did I…?” 

“No, no, look, we’re in the middle of the bed,” she pointed out, nodding to his side, then hers. “It was probably a mutual thing, we both probably -” 

“Oh, my God,” Peter said, not listening to her in the slightest. “Oh, God, MJ, I am _so_ sorry. I said I would stay on my side of the bed last night, I _promised_ you, and I said I wasn’t one of those creeps who take advantage of -” 

_“Hey,”_ MJ interrupted, using her classic, sharp _I’m-the-debate-team-captain-and-you-are?_ voice. 

Peter stopped talking immediately and looked at her, guilt and anguish still written over his features - but at least he was paying attention to her now.

 _Perks of being the captain,_ she thought, before getting straight to the point.

“You do _not_ need to apologise to me, Parker,” she said firmly. “And don’t you argue, either. As I was _just_ saying, we’re in the middle of the bed, right? That means it _had_ to have been a mutual thing.” 

“Peter, you didn’t break any promises to me,” she said urgently. “Or, at least, not intentionally. And it definitely wasn’t _just you_ who broke a promise - I agreed to those same terms, and it’s equally unfair of me to push myself on _you_ if you don’t want it.” 

“But -” he started.

“No buts,” she cut him off. “It’s crystal clear what happened, Parker. We were both cold because it snowed last night, and our bodies naturally moved towards the nearest heat sources. It’s science, and _neither_ of us is to blame for it. Okay?”

He bit his lip. “Okay, yeah, but I just…”

“I am _not_ letting you blame yourself for one second of this, no,” she interrupted, crossing her arms. “Because it’s a _known scientific principle_ that mammals, in Arctic situations, will congregate to share warmth -” 

“Okay, okay, yeah, you’re right, you’ve made your point,” Peter said, holding up his hands - but it was entirely without the customary Peter Parker dorky-awkward adorableness. He said, “It was _science.”_ And he said it like an agreement, but… his gaze, where it locked onto hers, was intense - _too_ intense, almost like he was asking her, _was_ it just science?

And _that_ was a question she really, really didn’t want to answer.

“Science,” she agreed, shifting away from him and onto her side of the bed, feeling slightly terrible about snubbing him like this when he might - _might_ \- be hinting at more. 

But then again, he might _not_ be hinting, and she might be reading things wrong (heaven knew she wasn’t the best at social cues) and in that case… 

Well, losing him would be the worst option, and even if it meant breaking her own heart, it would be the option she’d never pick.

“We’re cool, then?” she asked, her back to him so she couldn’t see his entirely-too-expressive eyes.

“We’re always cool, MJ,” Peter said softly, and she thought there was just a hint of _sadness_ in his tone, which made no sense. “We’re best friends.” 

That was _exactly_ what she had wanted to hear, but then why… why did it make her heart give a sudden, and entirely too painful, twist in her chest?

She thought back to her very _first_ moments of consciousness that morning, and how she had felt so comfortable, and _warm_ \- not just physically, but _emotionally,_ too, like every part of her was glowing with warmth and caring and _rightness?_

She could, she realised with a small jolt, see herself waking up like that again. And again. And _again._ She’d like it. She’d like it very much.

It had been so _perfect,_ so easy and natural and _comfortable,_ and so something she could see herself leaning into, letting herself get wrapped up in, letting herself truly, truly _relax_ into…

But no. He had said it himself - they were best friends.

And whether they were pulling off an insane dating charade or not, that was still true.

They were best friends.

For the first time in her life, it felt… bittersweet to think that. Yeah; what she and Peter had was beautiful, and special.

But she had just glimpsed what it could be like to have _more_ with him, and it was a glimpse she had really, _really_ liked the look of…

It wasn’t to be, though. They had agreed on it.

Still, she couldn’t help the feeling of wistfulness that lingered in her heart as she took her turn in the bathroom, dressing and washing her face as fast as she could.

Peter, for his part, was unusually silent, too - the customary sparkle in his brown eyes a lot dimmer than it should have been.

She wanted to analyse what that could mean, but simultaneously, she really, really didn’t. 

Staying best friends would be comfortable, and easy, and above all, _safe._ She wasn’t going to lose him as long as they just stayed best friends.

And that was what he had said he wanted too, wasn’t it?

Still, though, as she reached for his hand to go down to breakfast together, it felt like… an apology, even if neither of them had said they were mad, even if they had _agreed_ on everything they’d said.

It felt like an olive branch.

//

Breakfast was, for the most part, easy enough - it wasn’t like it was _hard_ to talk, joke and laugh with Peter, and nudge his shoulder affectionately every so often.

When he casually draped an arm around her shoulders as they dished their cereal, that wasn’t _hard,_ either.

None of it was hard. 

In fact, it was almost exactly like their friendship always was - with the exception that they held hands every so often, and she kissed his cheek once right before they headed out to go skiing. (He’d blushed very hard at that, and it had made her giggle despite herself.)

In fact, if she wasn’t _very_ careful… _everything_ was making her giggle despite herself.

He was still _Peter,_ dammit - still her ridiculously adorable, ridiculously awkward, ridiculously _wonderful_ best friend. With the addition of mild PDA.

And if she wasn’t very, _very_ strict with herself, she couldn’t even see where the _fakeness_ of said mild PDA began.

On a logical level, of course, she knew it was all fake.

But just like she hadn’t needed to _think_ about taking his hand that first morning, even if they _had_ managed to have a misunderstanding/mutual hurt session, she didn’t need to think about it now. 

Holding Peter’s hand, teasing him, kissing his cheek, playing his girlfriend… it was all way, _way_ too easy.

And that wasn’t even _talking_ about the times she woke up in his arms - because, yeah, it happened again.

The first time, they had blamed the cold again, and proceeded to tiptoe around each other for the rest of the time they got dressed and went through the morning routine, both knowing they were walking on eggshells, and terrified to crack them.

But nothing had _happened,_ and, cautiously, they had put on the fake smiles and almost-flirting for their friends, until their smiles had become wholly real again.

The second time (because, yeah, they were still in the mountain, _thanks,_ snowstorm) they were a _little_ less cautious - still very tentative in what they said and did around each other, and both breathing a long and heartfelt sigh of relief when they headed down to breakfast with their hands locked and no problems between them.

The third time it happened, they just exchanged a nod.

The fourth time, they didn’t even have to mention it, and the _fifth_ time… they almost _lingered_ there, both awake but pretending not to be, enjoying the feeling of lying wrapped up together.

In fact, MJ was slowly realising, _everything_ was starting to feel entirely too comfortable.

Entirely too… _real._

She didn’t know about Peter, of course, but _she_ hadn’t been faking these last couple of affectionate smiles, and reaching out to take his hand had stopped feeling like something she was doing for an act, and started feeling… natural, like it was just another part of her day, like breathing, or drinking water.

It wasn’t hard. It was _not_ hard.

What _was_ hard, though, and getting increasingly _harder,_ was reminding herself every night that this was fake.

She _liked_ this thing with him, regardless of her better instincts - and, she argued, it wasn’t like they were _really_ doing anything. They were still _just_ best friends, officially, and the line was still there - even if it _was_ very blurry, at this point.

The time to test just _how_ blurry that line was had to come, of course - and it arrived a lot sooner than MJ had been expecting.

Sooner than she had been _hoping,_ if she was being honest.

“I have a question for you guys,” Flash told them on their sixth day in the mountains, coming to a stop in front of Peter and MJ’s table.

The sight of _him_ there was so unexpected that they both stopped what they were doing immediately, playful smiles freezing on their lips.

“Why do you two never make out?” he asked bluntly.

MJ choked on the bagel she had been eating, and Peter leaned over to thump her on the back, glaring at Flash over her shoulder, too.

“Maybe we’re just not _exhibitionists,”_ MJ snapped when she had recovered her breath (and her wits.) “Ever think of that?” 

“Actually, yeah,” Flash said, with approximately twenty times more seriousness than MJ had been expecting. “And I _get_ it. But with how touchy-feely you’ve been acting the rest of the time, I just think it’s a little weird…” 

“It’s _none_ of your business,” Peter snapped, glaring at Flash like he could make him disappear with the force of his disapproval.

Flash held up his hands. “No, I know that, dude,” he said. “It’s just that…” He hesitated, then said it in a rush, “I hate you, Penis Parker, but I _like_ the way you are together. It’s… sweet. And I think it’s good for you both.” 

MJ’s jaw dropped. Did she just hear what she thought she’d heard - from _Flash?_

“That is,” Flash corrected himself hastily when he saw their incredulous expressions, “that’s what the commenters on my Flash Mob livestreams think.” He smirked at them both, and, yup, that was the Flash she knew. “They’re very invested in you.” 

“Uh,” Peter said eloquently.

 _“Thanks,”_ MJ said drily, rolling her eyes. She waved a hand at Flash. “Look, we’re fine. You can go tell your commenters they don’t have to worry, or whatever.” 

Flash nodded, turning to go, but then he bit his lip, lingering for a second.

She thought he was on the verge of saying… _something,_ but then he shook his head, turning away before either of them could see his expression.

She thought, from the tiny, tiny glimpse she had gotten, though, that he looked… genuinely _pained._ Almost like… this was exactly what he had been expecting; getting turned away with a snap and a snub. Almost like… that was all he _ever_ expected.

She shook her head slowly. She was probably imagining things… right? 

Besides, she had something a little bit more important to think about right now.

“Peter…” she said slowly, turning to her definitely-not-boyfriend and biting her lip. “We need to talk.”

“Great, it’s always a good thing when someone says that!” he said, pretending to cheer, but she knew him well enough that she didn’t miss the flash of worry in his gaze.

Rolling her eyes - “come on, dork” - she caught his hand and led him out of the breakfast lounge and into the locker room, ironically the same locker room where they had started this whole fake dating shebang. 

“So,” she said, only realising when she made to tuck her hands into her pockets that she was _still holding Peter’s hand._ Dammit. This had really gotten way, _way_ too comfortable! She couldn’t just… _forget_ she was still holding his hand because it felt so natural, that was _not_ how this thing was supposed to work!!

Very deliberately letting go of his hand, she flexed her fingers once or twice, feeling suddenly and ridiculously like Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice.

 _Come_ on, _Jones!_ she told herself sharply. _Pull yourself together. Also, stop making Jane Austen references._

She had a point to make here, after all.

“Peter,” she said slowly, ignoring the tiny desire in the back of her mind to slip her hand right back into his. “Do you think Flash is right?” 

He rolled his eyes in a near-exact imitation of her own inimitable sarcasm. _“Flash?_ Right?” he repeated slowly, as though he couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth.

“That was my thought process when I said it, too,” she admitted, wincing. “But… if _Flash_ has noticed we’re not making out, and if _Flash_ thinks there’s something off, don’t you think someone like Betty would definitely notice?”

“We could just be private people,” he pointed out fairly. “And especially _you,_ that’s believable.” 

“It is, but Flash is also right that…” Okay, even _saying_ it was making her cringe. She drew in a quick, deep breath, bolstering herself. “We have been really clingy all weekend.” 

There. She’d said it. And she hadn’t died! Congratulations to her, honestly.

As she had been expecting, Peter went scarlet at that. “We haven’t really -” he spluttered.

“Mm, we kinda have,” she disagreed, remembering with a small wince how unfairly easy it had been to forget she was even holding his hand in the first place (and also how distinctly she had noticed the _absence_ of said hand when she’d had to let go.)

Peter, judging by the expression on his face, was thinking something similar.

“Okay,” he said at last, an odd kind of look in his eyes, like he was simultaneously happy and apprehensive. “What do you want to do?” 

She took another deep breath, holding it for a moment longer this time as she considered what to say.

 _It’s been great, Parker, but I think we should come clean,_ she thought. _I don’t like lying, and even though this isn’t_ technically _lying, it also definitely is, and I wouldn’t have done it for anyone but you. It’s gone on long enough, though, and I think we both need to take a step back before things change forever between us. We can make up some breakup story if you think that’d be easier than just straight-up telling the truth, but I don’t think we should keep doing this, because our friendship is too precious for me to lose._

There; that was actually pretty beautiful and inspiring - she felt more than a little proud of herself for coming up with it on the spot.

But, instead, when she opened her mouth, what came out was -

“We should make out.” 

There followed a moment of shocked silence, in which Peter and MJ were equally shocked by what had just come out of her mouth.

“Make… out?” Peter asked at length, sounding shell-shocked. Half-unconsciously, his eyes flicked down to her lips, lingering there for just a second before darting guiltily back up to meet her gaze.

Dammit, now she was looking at his lips, too - and wondering for the entirely-too-many-eth time this weekend what the _bloody hell_ she had just gotten herself into, and how to fix it.

Her throat felt very dry, so she cleared it, licking her lips before she spoke. “Uh, yeah. Um. Make out. Because…” 

Well, why the hell _would_ they make out? It really, _really_ didn’t make sense for two best friends to make out, even if they _were_ pretending to date for Flash’s benefit and…

“Because we need to convince the team we really are dating,” she blurted out, her brain frantically racing to find the rest of her hopefully-logical explanation. “They all like seeing us together, right? And, stupid as it is, I don’t want to hurt any of them by telling them we lied to them.”

She bit her lip. “Also, I don’t think we could stand the teasing when they find out why we lied in the first place…”

The argument was _pathetically_ weak, and had approximately a thousand holes she could exploit if this was a debate practice and one of her team members had given her _that._

But Peter was nodding, latching onto her explanation like it was the only reasonable thing in the world.

“So we don’t hurt them, and keep them convinced,” he repeated, nodding once. “Right. Yeah. That’s the only reason.” 

“Of course it is,” she agreed, just as convincingly as Flash trying to tell her he wasn’t live-streaming instead of studying for practice.

Peter nodded, his eyes just a little too wide as he kept looking at her, deliberately not glancing at her lips. “When do you want to do it?” he asked, trying his best to make it sound brisk and businesslike.

MJ, for her part, couldn’t _believe_ what she was about to say. “Well, I…” she said, and swallowed hard. Then swallowed again. “I think we should practice first.” 

Predictably, Peter went bright red, then started spluttering, miraculously managing to choke on air. “P-practice?” he asked weakly.

She nodded studiously, suddenly unable to look him in the eye and studying the carpet on the locker room floor intently.

Damn, she suddenly understood _exactly_ what he had felt like that first day - this carpet really _did_ have the most fascinating patterns to study when you were avoiding looking into someone’s eyes and generally feeling like if an alien ship wanted to come down and kidnap you, now would be a pretty good time.

“I just mean,” she said, her gaze still fixed on the ever-delightful carpet, “we should be able to make it convincing, right? If we’ve been dating for at least two weeks, or nearly three by now, I guess -” 

“Four, if you count it my way,” he pointed out with the faintest smirk on his lips.

She couldn’t quite stop herself from grinning back. “It’s _three,_ Parker, you only asked me out _after_ a week, remember?” 

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, raising his palms, little hints of laughter making his brown eyes sparkle in a way that made him look _entirely_ too kissable.

“Whether it’s three or four (and it’s three),” she went on, with just a tiny flash of a smirk at their playful inside joke, “we would _definitely_ have made out before now. So if we’re going to kiss in front of everyone, it needs to look… natural, right?” 

And she _hated_ how reasonable she sounded saying it, hated how _casual_ she was, like she wasn’t suggesting _making out with her best friend_ in a way that would, oh, _totally_ not endanger her feelings and already-so-confused-it-couldn’t-keep-things-straight heart.

Peter, however, was nodding slowly, understanding and some other emotion she couldn’t quite read filling his brown gaze. “That makes sense, yeah,” he said, and was it just her, or was his voice suddenly a little lower?

It was probably just her, but… The atmosphere of the entire room seemed to change, to shift into something _else_ entirely.

And MJ found herself completely breathless.

Her heart was doing the strangest things in her chest, skipping beats and doing what felt like backflips - which, on a scientific level, she knew was impossible, but the closer Peter shifted to her, the more and more pronounced its acrobatics became.

“Do you want to do it now?” Peter asked, and his voice was quieter than she had been expecting, but there was something rivetingly intense about it, something that had every nerve in her body spiking up onto high alert.

When had he gotten this _close?_ When had he gotten close enough that, if she wanted, she could press her palms right against that chest of his, and pull him against her and into a long kiss?

Her breathing hitched, and her lips were slightly parted as she looked up, very, very slowly, to meet his gaze.

Their eyes locked, brown meeting brown, and MJ could swear her breathing stopped completely.

She had never - _never -_ seen anything like this expression on Peter’s face, this laser-focused intensity on _her her her,_ and every tiny, tiny movement she made. 

She licked her lips, her throat feeling very dry all over again, and Peter’s gaze darted down to follow the movement, lingering on her mouth for a beat… another… _another._

When he finally glanced up to meet her eyes again, the very air between them was _charged,_ charged with about two hundred unspoken somethings, and erratic heartbeats, and breaths catching and holding.

Slowly, deliberately, she dropped her gaze down to _his_ lips, letting out a long, shuddery breath as she looked back up at him -

And then they were kissing. She didn’t know who had moved first, or who had reciprocated first - the one moment they were standing there, and the next, his hands were in her hair, hers pressed flat against his chest, and they were kissing, _kissing_ like they might never get the chance again. She tilted her head, biting back a small moan as his teeth scraped her bottom lip, his hands tightening in her hair. 

And when they finally broke apart, they were both gasping for breath, lips swollen and hair mussed. Peter’s shirt, where she had been gripping onto it for dear life, was wrinkled, and the top button had come undone.

MJ didn’t know how on _earth_ she was supposed to find her voice after… _that,_ but somehow, faintly, and feeling as though she was hearing herself speak from very far away, she managed to say, “I can… I can work with that.” 

Peter was looking… well, _shell-shocked_ was the only word for it, his eyes wide as he slowly brought a hand up to rest against his lips. “I… yeah,” he said, his voice just as weak as MJ felt. “Yeah.” 

And _then_ it was awkward, neither of them able to look the other in the eye again - because, _hot damn,_ had they really just made out like _that?_

MJ was the first one to turn and half-sprint out of the locker room, not stopping till she reached the nearest bathroom, where she splashed the iciest, coldest water she could find straight onto her face.

_Holy. Shit._

Who the hell - who the _actual hell -_ would have thought Peter Parker could kiss like _that?_

And, sure, she knew the dork had had girlfriends before (he was the kind of person all the girls went crazy for, even though he was too oblivious to notice it) but… _damn._

Damn, damn, damn, _damn_ it all!!

She stared at her reflection, seeing but not properly realising how utterly shell-shocked she looked.

Well, _shit._

She had fucked up. She had really, _really_ fucked up - because how, how in the name of _God,_ was she supposed to go on after _that?_

//

MJ walked through the rest of the day feeling like she was drifting through a dream, like everything around her could melt as fast as the snowflakes that were still falling onto the cabin’s roof.

She had been able to deny it to herself for most of the week so far, to keep her head at bay by saying _they had both agreed they were just best friends! It’s fine!_

And, in a most un-MJ-like way (except when it came to one Peter Parker, apparently) she had followed her heart. 

But now it had gotten her… _well._

She couldn’t rid herself of the memory of Peter’s lips on hers, the feeling of his body pressed up against hers - and not just the way it had been _then,_ urgent and unapologetically hot, but also the lazier, more comfortable and downright _cozy_ way he had been curled up against her that morning.

She had been living in a kind of daydream of just… enjoying these things as they came, but now, oh, _now._

Now she had just been reminded, with an incriminatingly passionate ferocity, that she couldn’t simultaneously deny her feelings for him and indulge in them.

She had let it get _way_ out of control - because now, crushing as the revelation was to her, she couldn’t, and didn’t want to even try to, imagine her world without Peter waking up next to her, Peter holding her hand, she and Peter flirting about their fake-get-together date…

She stood quite still for a moment in the corridor, watching the snowflakes falling slowly, slowly, but ever-steadily outside the window, and feeling her throat close up as she struggled to breathe.

She would _have_ to give it all up, no matter how much she didn’t want to, and…

With a cold shock, she realised that there were _tears_ on her cheeks, actual tears, trickling past her lashes no matter how hard she tried to blink them away.

Dammit, dammit, God _dammit._

This was exactly what she had _known_ was going to happen if she let herself hope for anything, which was exactly why she had insisted to herself she _wasn’t_ going to let herself hope, but… Peter had always been the one person who could make her give up the firmest of her resolutions.

It was that smile of his…

She buried her face in her hands, fighting desperately against a flood of tears as they fought to get past. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be! She was supposed to think of Peter’s infuriatingly adorable smile with fond exasperation, not with this utter heartbreak, and -

“MJ?” a light, cheerful voice called, and MJ started, wiping away her tears as fast as she could.

And not a moment too soon, because barely a second later, Betty came around the corridor, a small smile playing on her lips. “Hey, MJ,” she said, and then paused, tilting her head. Apparently something about her must still have looked a little off, no matter how hard she was trying to hide it, because Betty asked, her brows drawing together in concern, “Are you alright?” 

MJ flashed her the sincerest half-smile she could manage, forcing any thoughts of tears and Peter to the back of her mind. “Of course,” she said through the thick lump in her throat. “Can I help you?” 

Betty studied her for a second longer, chewing her lip, before evidently deciding to take MJ’s word for it. “Actually, yeah,” she said, her bright smile turning a little bit awkward, and was that… _shyness?_

MJ’s eyebrows shot up as Betty’s next question was, “I’m looking for, uh, for Ned. Have you seen him anywhere?” 

She shook her head no, but her overwhelmed brain had grabbed onto Betty’s words like they were a lifeline and she was drowning in an ocean.

_Ned._

Oh, God, Ned.

Ned knew Peter better than anyone else on the planet, if she could just find him…

Then she realised, with a slow and dawning horror, that she didn’t have the faintest idea where she could find him at _all._

In fact, she couldn’t remember seeing him around since that first group gathering the day they had arrived, and…

 _Had she spent any time with him at_ all _this weekend?_

It came like an electric jolt of utter dismay as she realised that, no, she _hadn’t -_ she had been so focused on Peter, and flirting with him, and this thing between them, that she had _completely_ neglected to even _think_ of spending time with her other closest friend.

Oh. Dear. God.

What kind of pathetic, useless, _cruel_ friend did that make her… 

Making her excuses to Betty, she turned and all but sprinted down the corridor, her heart pounding in her ears, deathly loud through the haze that was still clouding her brain. 

Ned. She needed to find Ned.

But… where had his room been, again? 

Searching every scrap of memory she had, she came up blank, and was just about to start panicking for real when, at the very edges of her active consciousness, she recalled Ned turning _left_ out of the lounge that first day when the team had found out she and Peter were dating. Or. Fake-dating. Whatever. 

Skidding into the lounge area, she scanned the room until she saw, sure enough, another door on the _left,_ leading off into another set of rooms.

The question was now - was she _really_ going to knock on every single door until she found Ned’s?

The answer was now - yes.

(It was only more than an hour later that she realised, and wanted to _kick_ herself for it, that she could have asked the owner of the first door (who happened to be Cindy) which one was Ned’s. It would have saved her at least five embarrassing minutes.)

But as it was, she arrived at the last door in the line, cursing herself and her rotten luck - because of _course_ it was the last door, of course it was - she took a quick breath and knocked, giving Ned one second to reply “hey” before practically falling against the door.

 _“Ned,”_ she said, her eyes latching onto him like he really was that lifeline.

“Oh, hey, MJ,” he said, looking completely unsurprised to see her. “I was waiting for you to show up and - _oh.”_ That last part as, in an _utterly_ un-MJ-like display of affection, she crossed the room in two strides and flung her arms around him.

“Ned, I’ve been the _worst_ friend all weekend, the absolute _worst,”_ she said, and maybe she was crying a little again, stifling it in his shirt as best she could. “I’ve barely spent any time with you, and it hasn’t even gained me anything, it’s all been for _nothing_ -” 

“Whoa, whoa,” Ned said, rubbing soothing circles into her back until she calmed down a little and, mortified at herself, sat back, brushing her curls behind her ears.

“Why don’t you tell me everything from the beginning?” Ned asked, his expression gentle.

To her dismay, MJ sniffled. “Aren’t you mad?” she asked quietly.

He gave a small laugh. _“Mad?_ Why would I be mad?” 

“Because I was the world’s most shit friend for six days,” she said, swiping fiercely at her cheeks. 

Ned gave a small, surprised laugh. “MJ! Did you just say -” 

“I know, I know,” she grumbled, swatting at him and missing horribly. “Contributing to the rampant popularism.” 

“When did that happen?” he asked, still looking entirely too delighted with this development.

MJ rolled her eyes, and then, despite herself, sniffled again. “Right about when I became the world’s most shit friend.” 

Ned’s gaze turned about twelve times softer, and he reached over to put a comforting hand on her knee - something that, in usual circumstances, would have made MJ shift away at the first opportunity. Today, though, she welcomed it, even covering his hand with hers for a second.

Ned’s eyes widened a little more. “Okay, something is definitely up,” he said, but, to her relief, he didn’t move his hand. “First of all, you - _Michelle Jones_ \- sniffled. And hugged me. And now you’re letting me comfort you like this?” 

She laughed, but it was more watery than anything else. “Oh, um. Yeah. It’s… it’s Peter.” 

She took a deep breath, carefully considering what to say to him, when -

“I know you two aren’t dating for real,” Ned said, as casually as he might have said, _oh look, it’s snowing again._

MJ blinked. “Wait, _what?”_

And, “why didn’t you _say_ anything?” 

“To answer the first question,” Ned said serenely, “I know Peter better than anyone else, and I like to think I know you a bit, too. You guys wouldn’t start dating and not tell me - we don’t keep secrets.” 

“That’s a lie,” she muttered under her breath, then winced. Apparently “emotional honesty” meant exactly that - _emotional honesty._

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that,” she said to Ned, shaking her head firmly. “I’m not normally a very emotional person, so I have no idea how you deal with a… meltdown… or whatever this is, it’s all very new to me and I know I’m not handling it the best -”

“It’s okay,” Ned reassured with a quick but sincere smile. “Nobody _really_ knows how to deal with meltdowns.” 

“Thanks,” she said, giving his hand a small, grateful squeeze. “That actually… helps, a bit, to hear.” 

“I’m glad,” he said with a soft smile, though she couldn’t help but notice it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “So, uh, you know about…” 

“Peter being Spider-Man?” she finished, wincing slightly. “Yeah, um, I do, I -” 

She trailed off, noticing with dismay the deeply hurt expression in Ned’s eyes. He hid it quickly, of course, but it was like he said - they _did_ know each other. 

“Peter told you?” he checked, with just the slightest of cracks in his voice.

Her eyes widened. Of _course._ Of course that would be why he was upset; Spider-Man had always been _their_ thing, just as unofficial debate practice afternoons were _her_ and Peter’s thing.

“Oh, my God, Ned, _no,_ he didn’t tell me,” she said, nearly tripping over her words in her haste to get him to _understand_. “I figured it out a while ago, and he, uh, he doesn’t know that I know yet.” 

“Oh,” Ned said, and again, _“oh,”_ his expression turning into one of deep relief.

Reaching for his hand again - because, she figured, this whole episode was _already_ so out of character for her that she could just as well go all in - she gave his fingers another quick squeeze. “I’d _never_ try to muscle in on what you two have, especially not that part of it,” she told him, sincerely. “I wouldn’t even have brought it up, but, uh…” She gave an awkward laugh, twirling her hand around her head. _“Meltdown.”_

Ned chuckled, but his eyes had gone soft with affection and relief. “Thanks, MJ,” he said, quiet but sincere. “That means a lot. And I’m… I’m glad you know.” 

She quirked her eyebrows, and he nodded once, firmly. “Yeah. Peter hasn’t… well, he definitely hasn't always had the best time of it. It’s not my story to tell, really, but the basics of it is, he fought in the great battle against Thanos along with the other Avengers, and he… lost someone very close to him when they reversed the Snap. So he went dark for a few years, kept away from the big superhero stuff and just did some small, small neighbourhood things. Sometimes not even that. It was… hard.” 

“But then he eventually decided to try out for a university, and use Pepper Potts’ help to make it look like he was a transfer student?” MJ guessed.

Ned blinked at her. “That is… scary. And I do kinda see how you pieced the rest of it together, now - the timing of Spider-Man returning, right?” 

“Exactly,” she agreed. “He became active again just about at the same time as Peter transferred, _and_ \- now this is what actually made me think it could be possible in the first place - whenever he missed a debate practice, we’d see Spider-Man saving someone on the news less than an hour later.” 

“I _see,”_ Ned said, slapping his forehead. “We’re _idiots,_ we should have hidden it _much_ better -” 

“I mean, yeah,” she said, raising one shoulder and wincing slightly. “But in your defence, you were both going through a pretty rough time.” 

Ned conceded that, nodding slowly. “Yeah, it was… rough. Peter had a lot to deal with, and a lot of people _after_ him, too, which definitely didn’t help things.” He took a quick, deep breath, his expression softening slightly as he considered his next words. “In the end, it was all Aunt May, though - she’s the one who managed to persuade Peter that Tony would want him to get his life back on track.” 

MJ nodded - she could just _see_ Aunt May doing that, somehow. She was the sweetest woman alive, but she was also absolutely _terrifying_ sometimes, as had been proven when she had lectured MJ on never, _ever_ hurting Peter the first time she came over… and then, while MJ was still frozen in shock and mild fear, proceeded to give her a big hug and a bag of popcorn, shooing her into Peter’s room.

Yup, Aunt May was amazing.

 _Ned, too,_ she thought with a sudden and fierce rush of warmth. “You were there all along, though, right?” she asked him.

He nodded, his eyes swimming with a long, long list of memories about Peter and Spider-Man. 

MJ smiled, but she couldn’t help the hint of bittersweetness there was to it. “That must make for a really special bond,” she said quietly. “Something pretty much… unbreakable.”

She couldn’t help the note of grief that crept into her voice, and, Ned being Ned, noticed immediately.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he said, reaching out to rest his hand on her shoulder. “You and Peter aren’t broken, okay?” 

She shook her head, smiling without so much as a hint of humour. “You don’t understand,” she said dully. “Something… happened.” 

“Okay, yeah, you’re right, I don’t understand that,” Ned said, nudging her shoulder gently. “You’ll have to be a _little_ more specific.” 

Despite herself, despite _everything,_ she gave a short laugh, bumping his shoulder back. “Okay, _fine,”_ she said. “If you _must_ know - we, uh, we kissed.” 

Ned’s eyes flew wide, like out of the list of things he had been expecting her to say, that was pretty much the _last._ “But, MJ, that’s _great!”_ he exclaimed, pulling her into another spontaneous hug. “Oh my God, I’m so happy for you guys.” 

She shook her head, and kept on shaking it as she gently but firmly extricated herself from the hug. “No, it’s not good, it’s… it’s _bad,”_ she said, half-hiding her face in her hands. _“So_ bad, Ned.” 

She could practically _feel_ the confusion emanating off him in waves. “MJ, I don’t… _why_ is that a bad thing?” 

She flung her hands away from her face, jumping up and making a hopeless gesture in the air. “Because now I want to kiss him _again!”_

If anything, the delight on Ned’s face only grew more pronounced at this. “That’s _amazing,”_ he said, beaming up at her like he might grab her hands and start dancing around the room with her any second.

She was _not_ in a dancing mood, though.

“It _isn’t!”_ she exploded, bringing her hands together so sharply that Ned jumped, nearly toppling off the bed. “Don’t you _see?_ We can’t be together!” 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Ned said when he had regained his balance. “You can’t - _what?_ MJ, why would you think that?” 

_“Because he doesn’t think about me that way,”_ she replied, all the fight disappearing like mist in the sun as she slumped back onto Ned’s bed, putting her hands over her face in despair.

There was a long, long silence, so long that MJ eventually had to lower her hands, wondering what was going on - why wasn’t Ned saying anything? 

What she saw was Ned, perched on the bed exactly as she had left him, looking at her with an expression that could only be described as slack-jawed amazement.

 _“Michelle. Jones,”_ he said, in a tone so incredulous that she had to wince. “Are you being _serious?”_

She folded her arms sulkily, feeling suddenly and bizarrely like a little kid getting scolded for doing something stupid. “I, uh… Yeah?” 

Ned shook his head slowly, looking like he couldn’t _believe_ what his own ears were telling him. “You know,” he said, “for someone who’s basically the smartest person in her year, you are one _spectacular_ dumbass, Jones. Also, and I never thought I’d say this, just as oblivious as Peter.” 

_“Hey!”_ MJ protested, crossing her arms a little tighter.

Ned just gave her a long, flat stare. “It’s _true,”_ he said simply. “You’ve been pretending to date Pete for a _week_ now, almost, and you’ve even _kissed_ him - and you _still_ don’t see how much he likes you?” 

“That’s where you’re wrong, we’re best friends and nothing mo -” she started to protest, but Ned cut her off.

“Haven’t you _seen_ the way he looks at you when you’re talking? Awed and _ridiculously_ sappy, like you’re the Sun and he’s a planet orbiting you.” 

MJ felt her cheeks warm. “He really does that?” 

“Of _course_ he does!” Ned exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “He also holds the doors open for you, flirts with you in his awkward dumbass way whenever he can, goes out of his way to make sure _you’re_ comfortable, and acts like you’re the only person in the room when you’re saying something - MJ, that boy is _gaga_ for you!” 

She bit her lip, wanting to believe it with all her heart, but - 

“Ned, it’s _me,”_ she said, a little desperately. “You know I _suck_ at relationships of all kinds, you and Peter are the only real friends I have! And I wouldn’t even have known how to talk to _you_ if Peter hadn’t used his puppy-eyes smile on me for twenty minutes straight at lunch that day…” She trailed off, her heart twinging at the memory. “Point is, Ned, I’m the _worst_ at bonding with people. Why would… why would someone like Peter like _me?”_

And, there, she’d said it. That was the crux of it all. 

Why - why on _earth_ \- would Peter like her back?

 _“MJ,”_ Ned said, in a completely different tone to anything she had heard him use before. _“That’s_ why you won’t let yourself be with him? Because you think he won’t like _you?”_

“He wouldn’t,” she agreed, her voice small.

Ned got up from his bed, crossing the room until he was standing right in front of her, gripping her arms so that she _had_ to look at him. _“MJ,”_ he said again, and this time his voice was almost fierce. “I - _no._ First of all, I can’t believe you _believe_ that, and second of all - of _course_ he’d like you. Do you have _any_ idea how amazing you are?” 

Not giving her the chance to say anything, he barrelled on, “You’re the smartest person I know, and I’m friends with _Tony Stark’s protégé._ You’re also hilarious, in a totally wicked way (which, just so you know, is the best thing ever.) You’re also _kind,_ though you don’t let people see, and you _care_ more than anyone I’ve ever met, except, well, _Peter._ And maybe Pepper Potts.” 

“Point is, MJ -” He squeezed both her hands tightly, like he was _willing_ her to believe him - “you’re incredible. And, oh my God, of _course_ Peter would like you.” 

“Ned, _stop,”_ she protested, feeling like she might start crying again (this time from pure _happiness_ and being so deeply touched she didn’t know what to do) as she tried to swat away his hands - but he tightened his grip, holding on insistently until she met his gaze again.

“I’m not making _any_ of this up, MJ,” he said seriously. “I believe it _all._ And so does Peter - I _know_ it.” 

_“Ned,”_ she said, but it was a weak protest, and he held her gaze fiercely through it, gripping her hands tighter still. 

_“MJ,”_ he echoed. “You’re _fantastic,_ okay? And Peter is _lucky_ to be in love with you.” 

And she couldn’t _help_ the small grin that spread tentatively across her face, getting bigger and bigger as she let herself _believe_ it for the first time. “You really think so?” she asked quietly, but with an undercurrent of excitement that had her heart taking up its skipping acrobatics again.

Ned nodded, and she had never seen anything more encouraging than the grin on his face. “Of _course.”_

She laughed, a little watery, and more than a little disbelieving. “I… that’s… I can’t believe it, but…” 

“You _better,”_ Ned interrupted, wagging a finger mock-sternly at her.

She couldn’t help but grin. “I… I do.”

And she _did._

Because, after all, Ned knew Peter better than anyone else on the planet, right? And if _he_ said Peter had a crush on her…

Also, if he really _meant_ all those things he’d said about her, those things that had made her heart melt almost as much as Peter’s puppy eyes did… if that was really the way he and Peter saw her…

“Okay,” she said, slowly at first, but with a growing confidence and bubbling excitement. “Okay. Oh my God, okay. What do I do now?!” 

Ned, who had just been beaming encouragingly at her, stopped dead, his jaw dropping open again.

 _“What?”_ she asked, scowling as best she could through her radiant grin (which, she’d admit, was not her best scowling effort on record.)

“I left you guys to yourselves all weekend so you could _figure this out,”_ Ned told her in the tones of someone whose patience had just been pushed to the _limit_. “But, apparently, you’re both _way_ too dumb to do this at all without my help.” 

_“Hey,”_ MJ protested for the second time in as many minutes.

Ned rolled his eyes, so long and so dramatically that she just _had_ to be proud of it, as the official eye-rolling champion and coach of their little friend group.

“Okay, look here, you oblivious, beautiful _idiot,”_ Ned said, snapping her firmly back into the present. “You like Peter. He likes you. You liked kissing Peter. He liked kissing you. The obvious solution here is…” 

“To kiss him again,” MJ realised, following his thought process easily and, _fine,_ feeling quite like an idiot by the end of it.

She bit her lip, though. “But, Ned, I’m not sure I can -” 

Grabbing her by the shoulders, Ned gave her a shake as though he was trying to physically force all the self-doubt out of her brain (and, incidentally, causing more than half of her curls flew out of their messy ponytail.) “Michelle Jones,” he said, his expression simultaneously tender and absolutely terrifying, “Get out of here, _now,_ before I _actually_ kill you.” 

“But -” 

“For the love of _God,_ just go find that idiot best friend of ours and go make out with him until you both forget you were ever this dumb,” Ned said, giving her another, smaller, shake.

Just one curl fell out of her ponytail this time, and she brushed it quickly back behind her ear before asking, “You really think that’s what’s going to happen?” 

“If it doesn’t, I will kill you both and then myself,” Ned promised, his voice dead serious.

MJ couldn’t help it. She laughed. 

Ned held his threatening glare for a moment longer, then relaxed, chuckling too. “Well, not _really,”_ he admitted, nudging her hip gently with his. “You’re both far too amazing for that, even if you _are_ the world’s most oblivious pair of idiots. Besides -” and here his voice softened in _just_ such a way that MJ’s eyes narrowed in immediate suspicion - “I don’t think Betty’d want to hang out with a murderer” 

Eyes widening in disbelief, she looked Ned over, noticing the faint but undeniably _giddy_ and happy glow in his eyes, and the way he held himself leaning _just_ a bit in the direction of Betty’s room.

 _“Ned,”_ she said, feeling surprise and delight fill through her in time with the smile slowly spreading across her face, “what’s this about Betty?” 

He gave a little scoff, folding his arms and giving her a challenging look. “I left you and Peter to work your own things out this weekend, but do you really think I was by _myself_ all that time?”

 _“Ned!”_ she exclaimed, and then she actually _laughed,_ the sound genuine and full of utter delight. “Oh my God, I’m so happy for you! I - _details!”_

“Nuh-uh-uh,” he said, wagging his index finger at her and giving her a self-satisfied, smug smirk. “Not until _you_ go make out with Peter.” 

Her jaw dropped. _“Ned!!!”_

“Those are my terms, take it or leave it,” he said, simultaneously managing to look serene and infinitesimally smug.

“I cannot _believe_ you,” she said, shaking her head in utter incredulity.

And then, to both of their surprise, she pulled him into a tight hug, the _second_ time she had done this today. 

“Thank you, Ned,” she murmured into his shirt, when they had both recovered from the shock of it a little. “Smug conditions and teasing or not, I just… _thank_ you.” She took a deep breath, then pulled away slightly so she could meet his gaze, needing him to see just how much she meant what she was going to say next. “This - you just being _here_ for me - has just meant _so much_ to me. Everything you said, I don’t know _what_ I would have done if you hadn’t been here -” 

“Died single and miserable, I suspect,” Ned said, patting her back and stepping out of her embrace to smirk at her. “But, luckily for us all three, I _was_ here.” 

_“Very_ luckily,” she agreed, shooting him the softest smile she thought she had ever given _anyone_ who wasn’t Peter.

Ned smiled back, and she let the moment stretch and linger, marvelling at how _warm_ it was, what a truly _excellent_ friend he was.

She really _was_ very, very lucky to have him. 

“Alright, enough sappy stuff,” Ned said after a few seconds of pure _warmth_ had passed, putting on his best impression of her giving a pep talk. “Go get ‘em, tiger!” 

She rolled her eyes _hugely,_ but she was grinning as she turned and walked to the door, the warm feeling settling like a kind of happy glow in her chest and giving her all the strength she needed to keep taking those steps towards Peter. Said warm glow was, after all, fueled by Ned Leeds - a Ned Leeds who, despite being an actual angel, would most certainly murder her if she didn’t go make out with Peter Parker in the very near future. Also, she _needed_ to know what had happened between him and Betty!!

And, honestly - who was she to argue with those odds? 

As she was about to turn the door handle and leave, Ned called out, “I want all the details when you get back, okay?” 

MJ’s grin widened into something almost Peter-worthy. “You got it.” 

//

Peter, she thought, would be up at the ski lift, or maybe halfway down the slope by this time, already. That, after all, had been their little routine every day so far - after breakfast, the whole team went up the mountain to spend the day skiing there. As Abe put it - they had the snow, so they might as well make use of it, right? 

MJ had never agreed, and had stubbornly sat at the top of the ski lift with a book, no matter _how_ much Peter had widened his eyes and pleaded for her to go, tugging at her hand. 

_“No,_ Parker,” she’d said, lifting her book so she couldn’t see the sad puppy look in his eyes. 

He had peeked over the rim of the book, or around the side of it, depending on the day - but either way, it had been the most adorable thing she had ever seen. _“Please,_ MJ?” he had asked, widening his eyes and shooting her a hopeful, pleading version of _The Smile._

And, look, she was weak for _The Smile,_ so weak that it was a little ridiculous at this point- but not even _Peter Parker_ could persuade her to take part in a _sport._

He had tried really _hard,_ though, every single day - tugging at her hand, giving her the puppy eyes over and over, making her laugh so hard that she had to double over to stifle her chuckles, then using the opportunity to steal her book and hold it above his head so that, despite her height advantage, she had to jump and grab his arm to pull it down -

… And, seeing all this in her mind’s eye, MJ _had_ to give it to Ned. The two of them really _were_ spectacular idiots - because all of that had _totally_ been flirting, right? 

She thought of herself reaching up to snatch at the book at Peter’s hand, and groaning out loud in frustration when he danced away just too fast for her to catch, his eyes alight with mischief as he waggled the book above his head.

She had chased after him, finally managing to pin his hand against the wall and snatch the book out of his grasp, cradling it to her chest and glaring at him, her face flushed and her breath coming in little gasps, her hair falling out of its ponytail in messy curls.

Peter’s gaze had softened to something so achingly tender that it had made her heart do a hiccupping little skip, and, instead of pretending to be mad at her victory, he had reached out to brush a few curls behind her ears, his hand lingering on her cheek for just a second longer than strictly necessary.

Present-day MJ rolled her eyes, cringing as she remembered how the past version of herself had blushed, ducking her head and biting her lip in a vain attempt to hide her smile as she watched Peter walk away, a little skip in his step as he made for the slope.

Yup. Totally flirting.

And right _then_ was when it really, truly sunk in for MJ - she and Peter genuinely did have feelings for each other.

Because, yeah, she had believed it when Ned had said it, and let that belief fill her up with a surge of hope - but, after all, believing in something was different to having concrete evidence of her _own_ that it was actually, honestly, 100-and-not-just-67-percent-ly true.

Standing here, letting the memories of their past selves dance through her mind, and _finally_ seeing them without the mist of denial clouding her brain… she had _every bit_ of concrete evidence she could need.

And when she walked into the equipment room, it was to a feeling of absolute and bizarre calm.

She was about to do pretty much the craziest thing in her life - but, astoundingly, she was _ready_ for it.

 _So_ ready for it.

Her utter calm persisted even as she opened the ski cupboard’s doors and took out the pair of skis Peter had repeatedly said would fit her perfectly, fastening them onto her feet without even really having to think about it. She had watched him do it enough times, after all. 

And, even as she was standing at the top of the slope, the wind whipping through her hair and the skis slipping awkwardly as she got used to the feel of them - even _then,_ she didn’t feel so much as a hint of panic.

_Calm._

She released a single long, slow breath, and it came out as a visible puff in the chilly air.

Then, feeling as though her entire world had narrowed down to just this moment, she pushed off.

Time seemed to… linger, the only sounds she could hear the smooth _slice_ of her skis through the snow, and the thundering of her own blood in her ears. Some distant part of her brain was waiting for this all to go wrong, for her to topple off and make an idiot of herself in an embarrassing pile, but…

_Calm._

It wasn’t a particularly _good_ example of skiing, that was for sure, but she _stayed upright._

And she managed to _keep_ doing it until she rounded a bend, and _there,_ swishing in dejected, emotion-filled figure-of-eights in the fresh snow, was Peter Parker himself.

He glanced up at the sound of skis, and when he saw her, his jaw _dropped._ “MJ?!” he gasped, looking like his world had just been taken up and neatly flipped over. He rubbed his eyes - actually _rubbed his eyes_ \- and when she didn’t disappear, his mouth dropped open even wider.

The sound of his voice, though _\- MJ?! -_ was enough to cut through whatever fog of calm she was in like a knife, and, full sensations and awareness of her surroundings rushing to the forefront of her mind for the first time, she staggered on her skis, slipping dangerously as she tried to stay upright -

Then Peter was there, catching onto her arms and holding her tight until she stopped sliding completely, sagging slightly into his grip. 

Reluctantly, he let go of her, but he kept a steadying hand hovering near her shoulder. And, only when he was _sure_ she wasn’t in imminent danger of falling face-first into smooth snow, did he glance up and meet her gaze for the first time.

She saw wonder there, wonder and amazement and, above all else, utter shock. “MJ, what are you _doing_ here?” he asked, his voice coloured with those exact same emotions.

She shifted awkwardly on her skis, trying to shrug... which turned out to be a bad idea, as she lost her balance almost immediately.

Luckily, though, Peter was there, reacting with superhuman speed to grab onto her shoulder and pull her right up against him, managing to keep them both from falling with a smooth, sweeping movement of his skis that she couldn’t have replicated in her _dreams._

“Thanks,” she said, leaning back into his hold a little, not missing the way he tensed almost immediately. Turning her head so she could actually see his face, she went on, “And, uh, I’m here because… I needed to find you.” 

She could see the _millisecond_ his expression changed from vague discomfort to full-on guilt. “The kiss, right?” 

He didn’t even give her a moment to nod before barrelling on, “Look, MJ, I am _so_ sorry about that,” he said, his brown eyes full of a genuine anguish. “I never meant to make you uncomfortable, I _swear,_ I just wasn’t thinking for a moment there, and I feel _terrible._ If there’s anything, anything at _all_ I can do to make it up to -” 

But before he could get so much as a word further, she pressed her finger against his lips, rolling her eyes in good-natured exasperation. “Parker, _stop.”_

He blinked at her, crossing his eyes as he tried to look at her finger on his lips. “I don’t…” 

“Yeah, this is about the kiss,” MJ said, removing her finger from his lips in favour of pressing her palm against his chest. “But _not_ in the way you think.”

He swallowed hard, glancing down at her hand on his chest with a tortured expression on his face. _“MJ…”_

“Shush,” she said, tapping his lips with her finger again. “Listen to me for a second, okay?” She took a deep breath to bolster herself, breathing in and savouring the crisp, cold mountain air. 

“We’ve been dancing around each other, and deliberately denying what we both know is true, and misunderstanding each other so much we could practically write a TED talk on it,” she said, meeting his gaze frankly. “And as the one who’s _supposed_ to be obsessed with telling the truth in this relationship, I… lied to myself about my feelings for you for a _very_ long time.” 

“But I don’t want to do that anymore.” She held his gaze directly, noticing, just on the edge of her peripheral vision, that his mouth had dropped open again. 

She gave a quick nod. “Because the truth is, Peter, I was _scared_ by how I feel about you. Scared because of how amazing you are, and how… impossible it seemed that you’d ever feel the same way about someone like me. But most of all, I think I was scared of how easy it was for me to…” She swallowed, the urge to deny her feelings, or hide them behind a sarcastic quip, rising strong inside her.

She pushed it away firmly. 

“I was scared of how easy it was for me to _love_ you,” she said, and try as she might, she couldn’t keep the catch out of her voice as she asserted, “I love you, Peter Parker.” 

For a long, long moment, he just stared at her, and she could almost _see_ his brain scrambling to process everything she had just said.

Then, gradually, his expression started to change - morphing from shock to amazement to awe to…

_Whoa._

Before she had the time to pin a name to that last emotion, his lips were on hers, his arms tight around her waist as he kissed her like he had thought he would never get the chance to again.

He had to break the kiss after a lingering moment, though, shaking his head in incredulous awe. “MJ, I don’t… I can’t believe… I love you too.” 

And then he was kissing her again, his hands threading into her hair, and her own hands fisting his shirt, tugging him closer so that he was flush against her -

Peter ducked away from the kiss again, shaking his head once before turning back to press his forehead against hers, closing his eyes.

Instinctively, she closed hers too, feeling her senses sharpen and laser-focus on the little sounds of his breathing, and the feel of his skin against hers.

“I love you _so much,_ MJ,” he said, his voice trailing into a still-disbelieving laugh. “I have for so long now, and I kept thinking you might feel the same, but then realising that, no, you never would, I’m nowhere _near_ good enough for you.” 

Her eyes flew wide open at that. _“Excuse_ me?” 

“You’re just so smart, and beautiful, and unapproachable, and _incredible,”_ he said with a wry little gesture of his hands, opening his eyes, too, to hold her gaze. “And I’m so… not. Besides, there’s something I haven’t told you, and it’d change the way you see me forever -” 

“No, it wouldn’t,” she said, biting her lip and looking up at him through the corner of her eye. “I, uh… I already know.” 

“You already… wait, _what?”_ Peter spluttered, his jaw dropping for what was at _least_ the fifth time in less than five minutes. 

She shrugged one shoulder, giving him an awkward little half-smile. “You’re Spider-Man, yeah, I figured it out.” 

“Oh,” he said, looking completely shell-shocked. Then he blinked, seeming to come back to himself, and shook his head wryly. “Okay, honestly, I don’t know why I’m surprised.” 

“Thanks,” she said, flattered. “I didn’t want to say anything because, well, obviously, it’s your secret, and it’s your choice to tell me, but… Peter, it doesn’t _change_ the way I see you.” She reached up to touch the side of his face lightly, hesitantly, needing him to really _see_ how much she meant it. “If anything, it… it makes me admire you _more._ Because what you do as Spider-Man is nothing short of incredible. You _help_ people, and not just because the entire world is going to be at stake if you don’t, but because you genuinely, sincerely _want_ to. You want to do what’s right, and do it the best you can, and honestly… it’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen, Peter.” 

She ducked her head, feeling a little awkward with such a long and heartfelt spiel of emotions, but -

“That’s _exactly_ how I feel about you,” Peter said, reaching up to cover her hand with his. “Your _passion,_ your strength, and how you _know_ you want to be a lawyer so you can make the world a better place - it’s an _inspiration,_ MJ. One of the most inspiring, and _incredible,_ things I’ve ever seen.” 

Her breath caught in her throat. “That’s the most…” 

_“I know,”_ he said softly, squeezing her hand. “Nobody’s ever talked about _me_ in that way before, either, and -” 

“I thought you thought I was just sarcastic, and awkward, and weird!” she exclaimed, shaking her head and feeling like her brain might actually explode. “I’ve never been able to figure out why you keep me around, and -” 

“I’ve never been able to figure out why _you_ keep _me_ around!” he interrupted, shaking his head in an exact mirror of her own actions. “I always thought you felt sorry for me for being so dorky and awkward, or something…” 

Their eyes met, and they both trailed off, reading and reveling in the awe and blatant _amazement_ in one another’s gazes.

“So you’re telling me,” Peter said at length, in an entirely different tone of voice, “we went around being hopelessly in love with each other, and scared to admit it for exactly the same reasons, _for as long as we’ve known each other?”_

Slowly, and hardly believing it herself, MJ nodded.

Peter shook his head, giving an incredulous laugh. 

“We’re idiots,” they said at exactly the same time.

Peter’s gaze softened, and he leaned down so that their noses were just-just brushing. “Idiots or no,” he murmured, his gaze flicking obviously down to her lips, 

“You’re still very much in love with me?” she guessed, carding her fingers through his hair.

When he arched his eyebrows at her, surprised, she laughed, the sound carefree, and genuine, and _happy,_ happier than she thought she had ever heard herself sound before.

“Good,” she said, pressing her forehead firmly against his. “Because I feel exactly the same way.” 

And then they were kissing again - their longest, most tender kiss yet, and the first one where she felt that they weren’t rushing _anything,_ weren’t trying to push words they didn’t have the courage to say into the language of lips and tongues. No; now they were just… getting to know each other, and _this,_ and getting used to the idea of it.

It was, she had to admit, an idea that she _very_ much liked.

And as they stood there, wrapped around each other in the white snow, she couldn’t help but think that they had come completely full-circle from the first day they had arrived here.

MJ, at least, had come here expecting the _worst_ weekend away of her life - and, in a sense, that was what she had gotten, because it had forced her (forced _both_ of them, really) to finally see how deeply in denial they were.

And, for a few hours there, it really had been pretty _damn_ miserable.

But then… _now…_ well, everything was different, in the best way possible.

Out of the corner of her eye, MJ saw Flash had skated up behind them, stopping dead as he caught sight of them.

And, on a whim, MJ flashed him a thumbs-up behind Peter’s back.

She couldn’t be a hundred percent sure what had made her do it, but his reaction - total surprise, like a _positive answer_ was the last thing he had ever expected to receive - made her think that she had made exactly the right choice.

After all, in a strange way, she kind of _owed_ it to Flash - because, immature and annoying as he was, he _had_ played a big part in finally forcing them to work through their relentless denial. 

And as the snowflakes fluttered down to settle all around them, she couldn’t help but smile at the perfection of the moment. _Full circle, indeed._

Because _snow,_ of course, was the other thing that had helped push them together - and now there were tiny snowflakes settling into their hair and floating around them like the universe’s congratulatory confetti.

Pressing her forehead against Peter’s, and smiling so hard her cheeks ached, she thought -

_Best weekend ever._


End file.
